# liberation

Pronunciation: say "lib-uh-RAY-shun" /ˌlɪbəˈɹeɪʃən/

## Noun

1. The act of liberating someone or something, or the state of having been freed.
   - Simple: The act of setting a person or place free, or being set free.
   - _The liberation of the camp came in the final weeks of the war._
   - _Her liberation from a job she hated gave her new energy._
2. The achievement of equal rights and status, seen as freedom from long-standing and structural oppression.
   - Simple: Winning equal rights and fair treatment for a group that was held back for a long time.
   - _The liberation of marginalized communities requires dismantling deep structural barriers._
   - _Feminist thinkers often tie liberation to economic as well as legal equality._
3. An ironic name for conquest or theft, presenting the seizure of something as though it were a noble act of freeing.
   - Simple: An ironic way of saying that something was stolen or taken by force.
   - _The troops' so-called liberation of the village left every shop emptied of goods._
   - _Calling the raid a liberation fooled no one about who walked away richer._

## Origin

This word was borrowed from Middle French libération and from Latin liberatio ("a freeing"), which comes from liberare, past participle liberatus ("to set free"). It is equivalent to liberate plus the suffix -ion.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/liberation (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).